The future city is older than we might
think. The present Chinese City has
many different levels of social realities old and new unfolding a certain
poetic and vitality to the street. They
undergo a transformation and shift
through the fast reconfiguration of
the city space. One of the most mobile are the people who facilitate the
streets with all kind of services and
products. They adapt with a very
low tech, but efficient and therefore
innovative way to a changing environment. When we want to discuss

the future city Shanghai in the Expo
2010 these domains of the Chinese
City must be included. The high tech
inspires fantasies, makes curious, but
there is also a technology and knowledge that is so naturally embedded
in our daily life that its mutual presence is not recognized. It is going to
be there in the future anyway. It just
might be interesting to find out what
kind of potentials they bear already.
The Chinese City including all these
levels has the advantage to make
use of it.
3

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“…We don’t live in the Network
but in capsules. All networks,
from the train network, over the
motorcar network and the aerial
transportation network to the telephone network unto the worldwide web - all networks function
with capsules. … I propose capsule
here as the most general concept
for every closed off and pluggedin entity, which as a sum makes
the networks what they are. No
Network without capsules...”
(De Cauter)

Intro
The future city discussed in this article is not the
one where new technologies solve future challenges. It rather tries to look at the present. While new
technologies find their way into every pocket and
home, like mobile phones and computers, the majority of the tools we use can be traced back to the
first settlements. Examples are the chopsticks still
everybody uses in Asia as an extension of the hand,
the containers to preserve food, or the wheel as an
ease for any kind of transport. Each one of them
moved human kind into a new stage of relation.
But as the last century has shown us, it is more the
appropriation of the tools, or more general termed
capsules, that is transforming our society.
In the last century the modernist movement declared the machine to the dominant. Technologies
developed high rise buildings, airplanes, photography and film cameras, extended the perception of
men so impressively that it was hard to free him
from it. Le Corbusier declared that “the home was
a machine for living”, movie director Sergei Eisenstein said “the cinema is a machine”, and Marinetti, the Italian Futurist “a poem is a machine”
(Kurokawa). There had been early critique like
Bergson’s on the inhuman machine time in “Time
and Free Will”, but most movements did see the
possibilities in it rather than the inhuman. In general any kind of knowledge was relating to a broad
cultural shift of every day life. But not only cultural
and intellectual protagonists’ works and words
were carrying the machine age into daily life; it was
also the machine itself, unfortunately, not only in a
positive way. World War One brought a new dimension of killing and destruction. While the one side
was hoping that the machine is offering the solutions to the suffering of the people, this war resulted in a new civil suffer and trauma. Second World
War did even exceed any imaginable. Human use
of technology, methods and thinking was able to
kill systematically millions. New weapons became
so powerful to endanger the entire human species.
This experience could be one explanation for a new

5

generation of thinkers that formed a broad knowledge after WWII to revise the paradigm of western
centred philosophies.

Theory
An important representant is Kurokawa, a Japanese
philosopher and architect. He uses Asian thinking
to develop a framework describing the turn from
“the age of the machine” into “the age of life” of
21st century. Forming the Metabolism group in the
60’s he describes with the concept of symbiosis
“the relationship of mutual need, while opposition,
competition and contradiction remain.” They distinguish it from “the images projected by harmony, coexistence, amalgamation and compromise.”
(Kurokawa) He is still active as a writer and architect. In 2006 Zhengdong City in Henan Province,
China has been design by him.
There is another theorist I want to mention before
I move to the issue of facilitation in Shanghai. The
younger Belgian De Cauter is relating his thinking
to metabolism theory. He claims that the general
entities of any network are capsules. The capsules
as a sum are making a network of relations in a city.
The capsules are culture, identity as well as a tool
that enables or restricts.
Both offer a model of thought particular relevant
for China. While the development of the Chinese
Cities is many times described as “modernisation”,
their future cannot follow the same path the so
called “developed cities” have taken. This kind of
“Modernisation” is not replicable, but also not the
solution for future challenges towards a sustainable society. I suggest that it must be seen as a
narrative that has to be written. An important part
in “Modernisation” plays the call for new technologies that offer the solutions for our problems. But
the Chinese City not need the same technological
standards it has effective alternatives to offer. It
might be turned around. The “developed” city can
learn and reflect through the observation of the
“undeveloped”.

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One great example is the facilitation achieved by
a network of individual initiatives using simple but
innovative, energy efficient capsules. Shanghai has
a rich service distribution without any central or
even polycentric steered administration. The Facili.
City Shanghai is presently run in great parts by lower income population using the street to offer their
services. It provides them with the basic income.
By doing so they build a symbiotic relationship with
other inhabitants, the capsules they use and the
urban landscape the move through.

Simplicity
In Shanghai many inhabitants have to adapt constantly to their surroundings. By doing so, a large
group of the population relies on resources that
are simple appropriated. Simple means access to
material without large investment, use of technology without a highly specialized knowledge. As an
example, the many street kitchens are constructed of tools every household uses, integrated in a
handcart of wood and metal. They are part of the
Shanghai gastronomy not only by number. Food is
served nearly 24 hours in most districts because
they share space over day time with local services.
While the restaurant closes its doors, on the street
a mobile hot food stall is set up nest to it. Another
relation is to complement an offer at the same time.
Fried bakery next to the soup kitchen, hot noodles
next to the “All days” supermarket. Relations and
cooperation is formed. The mobile entities function because they can so easily access the spaces
that are temporary available in the city. They appropriate, complement what cannot be foreseen in
a plan. Such places become symbiotic spaces of a
very heterogenic society.

Administration
This possibility for such an informal activity is attractive. The mobile capsules form a facility network and distribute similar services all over the
city. This system is not initiated by a central authority, but has to be enabled. This is of major importance and makes it different from other models for
the facilitation of cities.

While the waste management is done central in
Western cities by big companies employing worker,
in Shanghai many people rely on the income from
transporting the waste, sorting and reintroducing it
into the recycle process. Centralization would take
away the income of the poorest people. In general
it gives the individual the possibility to become active.
The effort to regulate the facilitation of Shanghai
by controlling space and time is energy consuming. The amount of people and speed Shanghais
city space is transforming make that even more difficult. A central or polycentric authority has a disadvantage to those who appropriate by their own
initiative. It cannot react as fast as the individual
can.

Planning
Planning seen as enabling can do something very
important for the facilitation of Shanghai. While
land is privatized the state can guarantee a certain
level of accessibility to space for its inhabitants
through regulations, policies and master planning.
An intermediate space must be distributed in a way
that it establishes consecutive corridors where the
different socio-economic activities can link. The
more variety, the more social mix is at one place
the better. Distances between the groups must be
short. Handcrafted transport can only be remained
when the route can be gone. Otherwise a next
level of technology is necessary. That would be a
motorized vehicle consuming energy and making
the service more expensive. The competition is
limited. Not everybody can afford the investment.
A technical standard that does not primarily make
the whole more effective.
General planning attributes define a city that is providing space for symbiosis. They are variety, social
mix, short distances and intermediate space to enable peoples initiatives. I want to illustrate some
examples and relations for further analyses.

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Symbiosis

v

“We are now questioning Darwin’s theory of evolution. We must challenge the claim that human being - that is, the human species - exists
at the peak of an evolutionary climb and that the economic prosperity
and technological culture fashioned by our reason may rightly serve as
the means of natural selection for other living beings. Labeling stage of
development, such as undeveloped nations, semi-developed nations and
developed nations, represents a notion of progress that is similar to Darwin’s theory of evolution.” (Kurokawa, 2006)

Korukawa is arguing that the concept of our development underlies a general false estimation. A
very technological and economical centred way of rational thinking delimits the way we evaluate
progress. The stage of development of a nation and a society
can be questioned as an ideological label. This is very important for the internal and external
evaluation of the future city. The
so called “developing countries”
might be more developed as it
is acknowledged by those forces
who promote the “developed”
culture.

The call for “the age of life” instead of the “age of the machine”
is therefore one concept that
draws attention to the relationship of the individual to its human
and non human environment.
The capsule seen as an extension
of the human body is determining this relation. This makes sense
when we keep in mind that it is
not the object that defines the
level of development or culture,
it is men itself. The tool might be
high or low tech, the challenge is
how society is conditioning life
through it. So what is innovation
then?

Environmental pollution, global
warming and the distinction of
other species through a certain
culture of economic prosperity
and technological achievements
is destabilizing not only nature; it
is also leading to social tensions
in society. The issue of capsules
moves from the extension of the
body’s cells to one that has global
reach. Exclusion in our evaluation
can be observed in two strands.
The first one is oriented toward
the role of capsule body environment relations. The second one
is about which domains are observed at all.

“We must move from an age of economic assistance offered by the developed countries to the developing countries, and of the forced introduction
of the cultures of the advanced nations to the “less developed nations”
to aid aimed at the creation of a “developing”. The idea of technology
transfer, too, is another manifestation of the domination of the advanced
countries, an extension of the “universalism” of the age of the machine.
In the age of life it will be necessary to transform the technologies of the
advanced nations and discover ways for them to exist in symbiosis historically existing traditional technologies of other regions.”
(Kurokawa, 2006)
8

vs

Age Succession

Face to face stretching into modernity and out. Facilitating a city deals
with the basic ontological security. Different dimensions of time and space
are involved in routine encounters and daily existence. The Giddens model
of traditional and modern societies shown below does illustrate the impact of modernity but can be criticized of neglecting a psycho biography
where fears and threats are differently experienced by the individual (Layder, 2006). Another problem of the model is the differentiation into ages.
The terms might be missleading for the evaluation of Shanghai. Instead of
succeeding, such social realities exist mutually in the city.
traditional societies

modern societies

high presence availability
face to face

social relations stretched
over time and space

social control

technologies of surveillance

Mutuality
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... and systems innovate...

source
spot, well and collector

line
channel, pipe and connector

... toward miniaturization and extension

container
loading station and carrier
10

rays
transmitter and receiver

Shanghai Capsules

The future city has to provide many different systems
when it is going to keep to accelerate its speed and
reach. Fast Shanghai is challenged with the integration of many social domains, an advantage as well.
It can be seen that there exists a culture of initiative
and cooperation between the people that is actually
highly innovative and efficient. One is energy and
resource use. Materials are recycled and integrated
into the demands, as far as possible men power is
used for practise. Secondly, the city scape is constantly reused. Small markets do arise during a certain
day time. Socially cooperations are formed between
them. During the day at one street corner magazines
and newspapers might be sold, at night time a street
kitchen is selling food, both services opposite to a 24
hour fruit market. A share of space over time. Others simply gather to a vegetable market and extend
there single offer with other competitors. This makes
the place more attractive for costumers.
Shanghai is through such variety and density a very
convenient city, offering services 24 hours close to
nearly every home. This indirectly makes the drive to
the big supermarket not necessary. As well the flat
tire is fixed at the countless bicycle stations on the
walkways. It is a symbiosis that cannot be planned
but enabled and integrated in the way the city is faciliated. Parts of the Chinese City can be a good model
for a sustainable society.
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12

Shanghai Mutual.city

13

Capsules, networks and the non-places

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neighbourhood and the car free street

The smallest and simple capsules all over Shanghai
have many commons that make them interesting as
a system for the future city. Especially their use of
human power to be moved, the simple materials,
their size and their adaption to the requirements
is resource efficient and space saving. Because
they are so easy initiated by the individual they become a very important part in the social balance
of Shanghai, allowing the poorest to appropriate
space that becomes a expensive value.

urban fabric. Walking deeper into the old neighbourhood many of these carts and vendors can
be found. The concentration at this place is larger
in number. Costumers are people walking mainly,
probably living close in the remaining parts of the
neighbourhood.

The side street to Tibet Road is leading to one of
the poorer areas of Hongkou district. Parts of the
housings are already demolished. At this crossing a
market has formed with a huge variety of different
products. The carts are even placed on the street.
No traffic is interfering. The scenery of demolished
houses illustrates the changes in the Shanghai
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public light sources

The light is an important well for any service at
night. Sometimes it is a street lamb, the illumination of a display or the shop windows light which
allow a second or third party to appropriate space.
Both pictures are taken in Hongkou 10 minutes
walk distance.

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The first is a side streets of the residential areas between Tibet Road and Baoshan Lu.

commercial light sources

The second is at a major crossing of Baoshan Lu, a
with cars frequented street with larger commercial
centres. The two kitchen stand at the staircase to
the elevated pedestrian way.

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complement and extend

Shops, supermarkets, restaurants are many times
complemented. The localization can have many
reasons. One could be that it simply is an attractive
place being frequented by people, another that it
serves a similar need offered next by. Sometimes
the individual adds a small offer, the many similar a
whole market to the place.

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On the picture the vegetable vendors stand in front
of the pole barriers of the walkway on Wujin Lu.
The reasons why such an agglomerate exists can be
functional. But being a situated activity it can also
relate to local habits relating to former and present
contextual resources. It can be that a market had
existed close and is relocated, or a group comforts
the company. It does not mean that the conditions
have to be ideal. The pedestrian way would provide
better space, but is for different reasons not accessible.

disappear and cooperate

Waste is the part a city is never keen on having. It better disappears. Instead of a centralized management
in Shanghai single collectors with bags, carts or bicycles collect every material that is recyclable. For the
very poorest it is an important income to resell it.
The Shanghai architecture does not have to norms
for responding to waste disposal trucks. Many small
carriers access every unit. The urban fabric does not
need to integrate the transport but only the storage
spaces. Intermediate space is necessary.

The advantage of the temporary small intermediate
spaces is that they utilizes the capacity the city space
offers.
We have to put in mind that every city does produce
waste and stores it somewhere. It is a social and spatial issue how it is collected.

A second station in the circle is to store and sort materials before they are sold. Most of the time it is the
hidden spaces, a temporary accessible construction
place, or as in the picture a wall next to the dead end
of the metro line 4. To collect, store and sort cooperation is necessary.
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network access

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symbiosis

Both pictures are taken only a few meters from one
another. At the restored Duolun Lu in Honkou several shops with antiques, books and handcraft are
complemented at dark with food vendors inside
the gates. A certain continuity for the evening and
night use enabled a further step. While the food
stands do serve better and better accommodation
they improve also their performance. Some plug
into the electricity system, others use mobile energy storage. Routines enabled the temporary to
innovate.

electric cycle they draw off the energy for two light
bulbs. It shows how innovation and efficiency rely
on a continuity temporary use. A symbiosis might
be more based on trust and communication than
technological inventions. This is the vivid, resource
efficient, innovative Shanghainese street life.

As a local resident I could observe the development
for several months. Until the week the picture was
taken, the woman sold the boild sticks always in
the dark next to the gate. The new vendor located right next to her offered not only a sweet dish
but also an energy source. Using the battery of his
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Capsules in Commercial streets

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Pudong is symbolic for Shanghais development into
a capital oriented market economy. Besides the
skyscrapers photographed from the Bund there are
many projects that are a raw model for Shanghai
lifestyle. One considered best practise example is
Da Mu Zhi Guanchang. Instead of a enclosed shopping mall the developer built a shopping street
hosting many international companies like Starbucks, Carrefour, to name the most famous, and
some regional branches. The commercial centre
serves one of the most attractive residential parts
of Pudong, accessible by car or taxi from the next
Metro station. It is a popular spot under Shanghai
citizens.

As the picture show there is a border between
public and semi public space for agencies. On the
one side there are capsules of one person agents,
and on the other the shopping carts and promotion stands provided by companies. On the commercial streets is event marketing and promotion,
while on the bicycle parking lane mainly goods for
entertainment are sold. On the forefront the mobile flower and balloon vendor